Julius Caesar Speech Analysis

    The play Julius Caesar written by William Shakespeare in 1599, is about the murder of Julius Caesar, a great Roman general who conjured many lands, and helped to form the Great Empire that we read about today. Caesar was to be crowned king of Rome, but he was savagely murdered by a group of conspirators before he received the crown. After Caesar's brutal murder, Brutus a very honourable Roman, who helped in in Caesar's death, and Mark Antony, one of Caesar's closest friends, gave speeches at Caesar's funeral, trying to convince the crowd to agree with them and turn against the other. Brutus and Antony both made convincing speeches, but Antony came out on top, because Antony let the people make up their own mind, by appealing to their emotions.

In Shakespeare's tragedy Julius Caesar, Portia uses repetition, rhetorical questions, and parallelism in order to persuade Brutus to tell his secret. Portia uses repetition to get Brutus’ attention and to show him how much she wants to know the secret. Pleading, Portia urges, “I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus. / Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus” (2.1.301,302). By using repetition she gets Brutus’ attention so he knows she is talking to him. If Portia did not repeat his name, Brutus would not be as inclined to listen to her. With Portia stating his name more than once he is focused on her and knows that what she is saying is vital. In this part of Portia’s speech she uses pathos. She persuades Brutus by bringing up their

In the play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, an honorable man, Brutus, is planning to overthrow the soon to be king, Julius Caesar. Brutus is persuaded by Cassius that Caesar is a liar, too ambitious, weak, and not fit to be Rome’s king. Brutus soon believed Cassius, and they and the conspirators made a plan to kill Caesar. After Caesar’s death, Brutus planned to justify his actions of killing Caesar at his funeral in his speech to the people. After Brutus’s speech, the citizens of Rome were all in agreement that Brutus did the right thing for Rome. Brutus then decides to allow Caesar’s best friend, Antony, to speak in honor of Caesar. Antony speaks, and he convinces the citizens that Brutus’s actions were unjust and turned the people against Brutus.

What exemplifies a speech in which persuasive appeals and devices convey emotion and persuade audience members without using false information? Antony's speech in Act III of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare exemplifies a speech in which persuasive techniques work to achieve the speaker's goal. Mark Antony's speech consists of several persuasive techniques that amalgamate to form an effective piece of persuasive rhetoric. Antony's speech is an effective piece of persuasive rhetoric because he uses ethos, pathos, and rhetorical questions.

In Julius Caesar, one of William Shakespeare’s more well-known plays, Marc Antony finds himself persuading a crowd who believe Caesar’s death was for the benefit of the Roman people. Antony had implored “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears” in an attempt to sway the crowd to give credence to his belief that Caesar’s death is a tragedy to the Roman folk and create a mutual bond between him and the crowd. This bond created by Antony is one of the very few times his speech dips into the realm of ethical appeals. The crowd of Romans had been originally convinced by the three main conspirators, mainly by Brutus, that Caesar’s death was to the benefit of all the Romans by portraying Caesar as a tyrant. Robert P. Yagelski had stated in chapter 8 of his book “rhetoric is the art of identifying the available means of persuasion. Antony had found which avenue to take and predominantly used pathos to manipulate the simple-minded folk to seek revenge and give the same sentence to the conspirators and Caesar had received.

“The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force” according to Adolf Hitler, a master in rhetoric, who was able to sway the people of Germany into electing him as chancellor, and who was able to brain wash an army into creating the biggest mass genocide on the planet. This type of strategy is mimicked by Mark Antony in William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. Mark Antony’s extensive knowledge of rhetorical strategies, such as appeal to the emotions of the commoners, knowledge of topic and reputation, and syntactical devices eclipse Brutus’ reasoning for killing Julius Caesar and wins over the Roman commoners.

Unlike the common view of leaders, the potential leaders of Julius Caesar are not necessarily nice or giving. However, sometimes that is necessary. In the play Julius Caesar, a long tale of leadership shows the true qualities of the greatest leaders. Where the reader finds themselves started is at the point which Antony and Caesar, the overconfident leader of Rome, are discussing people around them. This discussion boils to a point in which Antony and Caesar discuss the possibility of Cassius being a threat to Caesar. Later, readers find Cassius is indeed a threat, as he and multiple others, including Brutus, stab Caesar to death. Antony then brings Caesar’s body to the multitude, and with a great speech inspires a hatred for those who wrongfully stabbed him. At the next point Antony is seen, he and Octavius are the new rulers of Rome. These two comrades go and finally eliminate the last of the traitors, Cassius and Brutus, in a battle that cements the two as the new leaders of Rome. Throughout all these actions, one man particularly showed that he should control the Roman Empire. Antony was created to be Rome’s leader in Julius Caesar, where William Shakespeare gave him inspirational abilities, persuasiveness, and fearlessness which are unparalleled.

Many people know that Julius Caesar was betrayed and killed by many people who he had thought to be his friends. Some less common knowledge is that he did still have friends and others who stayed loyal to him. One man named Mark Antony was the most loyal of them all, even after Caesar’s death. When he found out Caesar had been killed, he began plotting to get on the traitor’s good sides and make it seem as if he had joined them so that he could convince the citizens to fight against them with him. He deceived the traitors and convinced them to let him speak at Caesar’s funeral, and in this speech he turned the citizens against them using very powerful rhetorical skills. After he had drove the traitors from the city, he took control of the city and led them to victory in a war against the conspirator’s armies. These are three telling examples that prove Antony’s skill and potential as a leader.

In the tragic play Julius Caesar there is a leader everybody looked up to named Caesar. Although people looked up to him he was not always loyal,trustworthy, or honorable. Some seen it before others and want to make a change and within that change Caesar had to be kilt. Brutus being Caesar friend knew the games that he played and became one of the ones that put an end to his games. With him being his friend he honoured him for all the good but as he was ambitious Brutus slew him. Maybe Caesar knew he was no good to Roman because once he seen Brutus standing upon the conspiracy something switched in him he no longer fought for his life. Caesar last words were “Et tu, Brutus(you too Brutus)then falls Caesar”.

The Roman senators all took part in betraying Caesar by murdering him. One of the main people involved, Brutus, held a funeral service for the deceased Caesar along with a brief speech. One of Julius Caesar's main companions who loved him dearly, Antony, also gave a speech that lasted much longer. After looking through the ethos, logos, and pathos mentioned in this story, it is obvious that Antony is more persuasive.

Some might say that the ability to effectively persuade people to do things is one of the most useful qualities a person can possess. However, it can also be one of the most dangerous. In Julius Caesar, a play by William Shakespeare, a group of conspirators were plotting to overthrow Julius Caesar, who was poised to become the leader of the Roman Empire. Because doing this was a mission that would require a larger group of people, the conspirators attempted to convince people to support their plan and join the group. In doing so, the conspirators used tactics that appealed to both the logic and emotion of others.

Mark Antony and Marcus Brutus from the play of “Julius Caesar” written by William Shakespeare, both try to persuade their audience if Julius Caesar is ambitious or a noble man. They both use rhetorical devices and persuasion very well, but unlike Brutus, Mark Antony is more persuasive in convincing his audience because he appeals to the audience’s emotions by embedding rhetorical questions, physically displaying emotions and sympathy, and capitalizing on his relations with Caesar throughout his funeral speech.

In the Tragedy Of Julius Caesar, Caesar was soon to be crowned king, after defeating Pompey. Caesar becoming king wasn’t the best idea and interest in some of the people eyes in Rome because they don’t think he is worthy enough to hold that type of power. Cassius was mad at the idea of Caesar becoming king, so he began to plot a plan to kill Caesar. His plan to kill Caesar involved a good friend of Caesar, Brutus and other loyal men and conspirators to make his plan work. So Cassius began plotting by convincing Brutus to join him and it worked, which was all Cassius needed to get close to Caesar. When the day actually arrives for Caesar to be crowned king their planned worked as Casca was the first to stab Caesar, and Brutus being the last person to stab Caesar and to hear the last words spoken from Caesar. After all this went down, Brutus went and spoke to the crowd and explained what happened and why they killed Caesar before being crowned king. The crowd agreed at first about Caesar needing to be killed until Antony spoke which changed everything and the crowds reaction. Now that the crowd had heard Antony, they want to kill the conspirators and who ever had a part in Caesar’s death. So now that you know the moral of “ Tragedy Of Julius Caesar” I will now discuss some examples of ethos, logos, and pathos.

At the start of the timelessly classic play, Julius Caesar was in the final stages of parlaying his military prowess and growing cult of personality into enthronement as the long absent autocrat of Rome. His brother-in-arms, Marcus Brutus, after fighting at Caesar’s side for so long, was forced to weigh his loyalty to Caesar against his loyalty to Rome, setting the stage for the troubling events to come. As Caesar’s divine right to rule and infallibility were trumpeted throughout Rome, others were not so convinced of his purity and worthiness. Cassius, a dissident Senator, opened Brutus’ eyes to the circumstances unfolding before them and to what could be lost should Caesar take the throne. Cassius voiced his opposition strongly, saying:

William Shakespeare, one of the most profound writers in all of history, skillfully used the character of Mark Antony in his play, Julius Caesar, in order to verify true the theme that loyalty and respect are two of the most extremely convincing tactics. He demonstrates the power of speech as he is manipulating words in order to prove a certain point in the speaker’s favor, whoever that may be. Mark Antony was a man who enjoyed spending the majority of his time at extravagant parties and receiving everything he wanted at his sudden demand. Shakespeare created Antony to be an expert in speech manipulation, which ended up making Julius Caesar to be what